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Day 207 of 280 · 29 weeks + 4 days

Eleven weeks

Last reviewed · 3 min read · 7 sources · Plain-text version

Twenty-nine weeks and four days, with about eleven weeks to go. Today you turn the time left into one line per week, so nothing lands in the last fortnight.

Size this week
about the size of a butternut squash
Length this week
around 38.6 cm from head to heel
A couple at a bright living-room window in morning light, her in a loose striped top with a full bump, him holding a paper wall calendar while she pencils short notes into the weeks.

Twenty-nine weeks and four days. Your baby is due in about 11 weeks (NHS). That's long enough to do everything and short enough to lose track of. Today is a planning day: one line per week, written once.

Your baby

A single butternut squash on a plain pale wooden table, soft window light.

Around 38.6cm from head to heel, about the size of a butternut squash, and now fully formed (NHS). The weeks ahead are for maturing organs and gaining fat (NHS), which is exactly what your eleven weeks of lists won't affect at all. The baby has their own schedule.

Your body

"Eleven weeks" is an estimate. Normal term labor can start anywhere from 3 weeks before to 2 weeks after the due date, which MedlinePlus calls only an estimate (MedlinePlus). So the AAP's advice is to plan early: make a checklist of what has to happen before delivery, and make your last-minute preparations before your ninth month (AAP).

Your body will set the pace for the work. The extra weight adds strain, the baby pressing on your lungs can make you breathless, and sleep is harder (NHS). Jobs that take an afternoon now may take two in six weeks.

Try today

  1. The eleven-week list

    Time: 20 minutes

    1. Write the weeks from 30 to 40 down the left side of a page, one line each.

    2. Put the big jobs on the earliest lines: a car seat approved for typical newborn weights, and help with child care or housekeeping, lined up well before the due date (AAP).

    3. Add interviewing a pediatrician, which the AAP places in the final months of pregnancy (AAP), and packing the hospital bag (AAP).

    4. Fit in the rest: a birth class if you haven't booked one, names, the route. Leave weeks 38 to 40 nearly empty, for rest and for the things you forgot.

    5. Put a name next to every line: yours, your partner's, or someone else's.

    Make it work:

    Stick the page where you both pass it daily and cross things off in pen. Eleven lines is a plan; forty open browser tabs is not.

Watch for

  • Normal

    a busy baby with their own pattern of quiet and active spells.

    Call your provider

    if you count fewer than 10 movements within two hours (OWH); a baby's movement stopping or slowing is an urgent warning sign (CDC).

  • Normal

    an ordinary headache now and then.

    Call your provider today

    for a headache that won't go away or gets worse over time, or any change in your vision (CDC).

  • Normal

    puffy ankles by evening.

    Call your provider

    for sudden swelling of your hands or feet, or rapid weight gain, which may signal preeclampsia (OWH).

For you

Some people find a list calming; some find it a wall of things not yet done. If it's the second, cut it in half and give the other half away. Nothing on it needs to be done by you specifically, except resting.

If you're the partner: take at least four of the eleven lines, with your name in ink. The AAP's advice is to have a list of names to call for extra help even if you don't think you'll need it (AAP). Start that list too.

Sources

This guide is general education that summarizes published research and guidance from groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics, the CDC, and the WHO. It isn’t medical advice, and every child develops on their own timeline. Your pediatrician knows your child; if something feels wrong, call them. In an emergency, call 911.

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